greater New York area is still experiencing land subsidence triggered
by the glacial retreat that occurred more than 10,000 years ago.
New York City is not waiting for climate change: It is already expe-
riencing much warmer years and reduced snowfall. Gornitz notes
anecdotal effects, including the Central Park pond that people skated
on in the 1970s that now often remains unfrozen all winter. “The
cherry blossoms come into leaf a lot earlier now,” she adds, “and the
leaves stay on the trees a lot longer in the fall.”
Janine Bloomfield is a senior scientist at Environmental Defense
and author of the report “Hot Nights in the City: Global Warming, Sea-
Level Rise and the New York Metropolitan Area.” Her report, based on
MEC research, makes frightening reading. By 2100, she writes, New
York City will have as many 90-degree days as Miami does today. “Sea-
level rise will contribute to the temporary flooding or permanent inun-
dation of many of New York City’s and the region’s coastal areas.... A
large part of lower Manhattan would be at risk from frequent flooding
by the end of the [twenty-first] century.... The East River would flood
Bellevue Medical Center, the FDR Drive and East Harlem between
96th and 114th Street,” the report says. In a poignant note, the pre-9/11
report notes that the foundations of the World Trade Center would be
vulnerable to nearly annual flooding at the end of the century.
Droughts that now occur once in a hundred years could occur every 3
to 11 years by 2100.
“The tragedy of this is that we could do something about this now
so the scenarios I wrote about won’t come to pass,” says Bloomfield,
who now lives in Boston. “Unfortunately, we won’t react until the
crises become obvious.”
The coming changes will do more than make people swelter or get
their feet wet occasionally. “It really could become a serious economic
burden for the city,” says Klaus Jacob, senior research scientist at
Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “The cur-
rent flood insurance program doesn’t account for 100 years from now,
and that’s no way to plan for the future, especially a sustainable one.”
Coordinated planning for these eventualities has been minimal,
and actual action even less. Some airport runways and seawalls have
been raised. Rae Zimmerman, a New York University professor and
42 Jim Motavalli with Sherry Barnes